


The Thief's Tale

by Rimedio



Category: Derkholm Series - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Gen, Yuletide 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 23:56:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5475317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rimedio/pseuds/Rimedio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What was Reville/Regin up to between the meeting at the University and joining Blade's tour...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Thief's Tale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [makiyakinabe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/makiyakinabe/gifts).



After the unexpected appointment of Wizard Derk to the post of Dark Lord, Reville returned to the Thieves Guild in a pensive mood.  Deciding he wasn't ready to share his thoughts with his advisers just yet, he turned left at the guild's gates instead of entering, and proceeded on through the warren of narrow city streets.  He navigated by habit, thoughts turned inward. It had not been the meeting he'd expected, the plans for disruption hatched within the Thieves Guild now seemed insignificant and juvenile. He did not like that Querida and the university had gotten the jump on him. He and the rest of the Guild Advisory Committee would have to rethink their plans completely, and it was only a few weeks until the first tour came through.

Reville spared a moment for his frustration at how badly his intelligence network had let him down, and vowed that he would discover how the failure occurred and make sure it never happened again.  However, he had more pressing problems at the moment so he did not dwell long, turning his mind instead to the information gleaned at the university. The university had clearly been planning this move against Mr. Chesney and his pilgrim parties for some time; they are well organized and certainly have more planned than the little Querida saw fit to share. _Hmm, what could those other plans be?_ Querida had seemed genuinely surprised to discover that thieves were not already stealing from the tourists, but more than that, there had been and evil light in her eyes when she told him to "by all means start stealing from the tourists," which made him think it aligned with her plans in some way. Perhaps he would not have to totally revise the Thieves Guild plan after all. Maybe he should level with Querida and coordinate. No, Querdia was playing her hand very close to the chest and it was unlikely that he would be able to convince her to open up, no point in revealing thieves' secrets for nothing. And he would never be able to maintain the pretense that he was but a common member of the Thieves Guild.

He contemplated Querida's character for a time, cunning and full of layers, she would have plans within plans, and it would be very hard to get the better of her. He suddenly remembered that she had originally considered him a representative on the side of the Pilgrim Parties. She would probably be revising that opinion now but‒ he shook his head, he didn't have enough information and was beginning to think in circles, time to go back. 

~~~

Reville slammed the door to his private quarters. Querida was the most infuriating woman in the world!

After careful consideration Reville had decided it was worth it to visit Querida and that requesting information on this "Derk" who was to be Dark Lord was only natural. Unfortunately Querida didn't know that much about Derk, or (more probably) wasn't telling what she knew. She would keep going on about what a poor excuse for a wizard Derk was, and never answered when he asked if that fit in with her plans or not.

"Pah!" he tossed his jacket on a three legged stool and kicked the lot across the room. At least his visit to the university had given him the opportunity to read the messages from the dragons and elves.

They were as cryptic as Querida had indicated, but no less fascinating for that. The elves did indeed talk about blackmail, and it also appeared that Mr. Chesney had stolen something valuable from them, although as the letter went on it almost seemed like they were complaining of being held hostage. Well he supposed they were, along with the rest of this world. The dragons used a lot of space bemoaning the shrinking of their hordes. He supposed this made sense what with how dragons were, but sometimes their language was so expansive it seemed like they were talking about the whole world. But that didn't make sense, the planet couldn't be shrinking, and even Mr. Chesney's reach wasn't that long. Why couldn't magical creatures ever speak plainly? Both the dragons and elves hinted at more complex and far-reaching intrusions by Mr. Chesney then was commonly known, but both were frustratingly lacking in specifics. He sighed, nothing to be done now, but he would have to tell his thieves to keep an eye out. Observation was something they were trained for: he would get his answers.

 ~~~  
  
"I just want it recorded that I think this plan is stupid."

Ravel glared at Rana, his chief advisor and confidante, known throughout the Thieves Guild for her fiendishly clever plans. Usually he was glad of these characteristics, and the fact that she was unafraid of speaking her mind when she disagreed with him. Today however‒ he took a deep breath and counted to ten, squashing his frustration before responding as politely as possible. 

"What do you propose we do then?"

"You're trying to do too much," she responded promptly, glaring at him when he made to protest.

"No, listen to me, it isn't about having enough people to do it, it's about having the right people in position to act once we've found the information we're looking for. Embedding thieves in Pilgrim Parties is a good idea, but also sending people to each adventure is overkill, and way too hard to maintain. We _will_ be noticed, and that's not good.

"We need to think about security. Querida may be out of commission for the moment, but she's not the only smart person involved with the tours, and she'll be back before long. The thieves embedded in the Pilgrim Parties need to be our people who are best at camouflage and subterfuge, and they will need more instruction then 'look for something weird.'

"I think your idea to send envoys to the elves and Dragons was a good one though," she stopped talking and stared at Reville expectantly.

The problem was, Reville thought, she was nearly always right. Of course that was why he had promoted her, but it always sounded so simple when she laid it out and then he felt like he should have seen it from the beginning.

"Alright," he said, "the envoys will remain unchanged. Dorick, you work with Rana to revise the Pilgrim Party roster, making use of anyone you want on the adventure roster. I still want someone joining the pirates and the gladiator handlers, and I _will_ be going with the last tour, don't even think of changing that.

"Any other comments?" He glared at Rana, daring her to protest.

She glared back but said nothing .

"Ok, dismissed," and he strode out of the room.

~~~  
  
Reville shook his head, thinking he must have misread, but the words on the little roll of paper remain fixed. It was a pigeon report from the thief embedded in one of the first wave of Pilgrim Parties, reporting after what should have been the sacking of Chell. Most surprisingly however, they had arrived to discover the city and castle completely empty save for the Duke of Chell, whom they had found locked up in his own dungeon. Luckily the castle carrier pigeons had been left in their cages, and the thief had been able to sneak off and use one.  Apparently the party's wizard had been busy distracting the tourists from their disappointment over the failed siege with spine chilling tales of the Dark Lord.

This was a perplexing and frankly astonishing development. Reville swore quietly, it seemed he had once again underestimated Querida. At least her game was now becoming more clear: she was aiming to inflict maximum chaos on the tours. Well she was certainly off to a good start.

He sighed, as welcome as the news was, it gave no hint of anything else going on beneath the surface of the tours. The thief's report mentioned no unusual behaviour from her wizard guide. He didn't even seem to be sneaking off and translocating home for the occasional bath and/or square meal as he'd heard some of them did. 

Oh well, he hadn't really expected the wizard guides to be involved, that was why he had been so adamant about embedding thieves in the band of pirates (easy) and gladiator handlers (hard).  He hadn't heard from either of those thieves yet, or the envoys to the elves and dragons, but it was still early days, and pigeons were not the fastest form of communication.

~~~

It was less than a week until Reville himself needed to start his journey to Graynash for the start of his own tour and finally here was something more than increasingly colourful accounts of all the ways the tours were going wrong. The accounts made for interesting and entertaining reading, but offered little information he didn't already have (although he was intrigued by the descriptions of the Dark Lord's demon). This however, this was new and interesting. It was a pigeon message from the thief embedded in the band of pirates, describing an unusual incident involving a small party of dwarves carrying a large amount of treasure.

Pirates it transpired, were almost as obsessed with treasure as dragons. They talked about it constantly and their main complaint with Mr. Chesney's Pilgrim Parties seemed to be that he didn't pay them enough to make up for the time lost from treasure hunting. When they were not complaining about the tours, or holding pilgrims hostage, the pirates liked to tell elaborate and far-fetched tales about their exploits finding, stealing, and hiding treasure.  A disproportionate number of these stories seemed to feature dwarves and dwarf treasure.  At first the thief had assumed this was because dwarf treasure was simply considered the highest quality of treasure, however as the weeks passed she realized that the pirates were keeping a sharp lookout on certain paths along the shore, "jus' lookin' fer any los' pony trains or, ya'know little armoured buggers."

One early morning their vigilance was rewarded when an over-burdened pony bolted over the ridge, snagged its pack on a protruding tree branch, managed to wrench itself out of the pack and take off along the shore path leaving behind a ripped but sturdy leather pack spilling what could only be described as classic dwarf treasure.  The pirates had whooped, thrown a rowboat over the side and made it out and back with the fallen treasure before the owners of the pony even crested the ridge in pursuit.  Upon seeing the pirate ship anchored off the shore, the dwarves shouted and waved their fists, clearly correctly surmising what had happened their missing pony's load.

One of the dwarves cupped his hands around his mouth and used magic to amplify his voice so the pirates lined up on deck (the pirates liked gloating almost as much as stealing treasure) could hear him. "Oy! That treasure was bound for Lord Mr. Chesney and he won't be happy to hear what happened.  I wouldn't be in your shoes for anything when he finds out.  Stealing from the Dark Lord of the world, that's a hanging offense that is!"

The pirate captain responded with a rude gesture, that the dwarves may or may not have seen.  In any case they didn't act like they expected a response and eventually moved off in the same direction the pony had gone.

Sitting in his study holding the thief's report Reville grinned to himself. The dwarves were paying tribute to "Mr. Chesney, Dark Lord of the world," well well well, that was _definitely_ not in the contract.

~~~

Reville was excited despite himself. Even though he had done almost nothing but think about pilgrims and Pilgrim Parties for the last three months he'd never met an actual tourist before. He tried to time it so that he would be one of the first pilgrims to arrive but not the very first. He needed the cover of other tourists to sneak his name onto the pilgrim roster.

As he entered the inn,  Reville looked around, assessing the people he saw: a soft-looking older couple, two intense middle-aged men trying to look like they did this every day, a fabulously beautiful young woman, and a plain looking young man who was probably her brother. The wizard guide hadn't arrived yet, excellent. Reville headed towards the off-world belongings cupboard to engage in some light thieving while the rest of the pilgrims arrived. As he rounded the corner he came face to face with the oddest couple he had ever seen, a befuddled looking elderly gentleman being led a woman so fierce she looked a match for Querida. Both of them were wearing clearly off-world clothing.

"Come along Eldred," the woman snapped, "the wizard isn't here yet so we will see the town now."

They disappeared out the side door. _If those two are regular tourists I'll eat my rapier_ , Reville thought staring after them, _I knew it was a good idea to come on this tour._

And with that thought he grabbed a handful of wrist-watches from the cupboard, and headed back to the main room to see what information he could get out of his fellow pilgrims before their wizard arrived.

 

~~ _FIN_ ~~

 

 


End file.
